Month: August 2010

Holy smokes did I make a delicious dinner last night! Even Symphony, who is as picky an eater as I am, tried everything, which is amazing. I think I was able to strike a balance between food kids like AND food adults like.

clockwise from top left:
•rice (brown & white mixed half & half with a little bit of lime salt for deliciousness and nutritionability)
•fresh cut green & purple salsa (green zebra tomatoes, purple pepper, red onion, cilantro, jalapeño, lime juice, salt & pepper)
•grilled corn (I did it on a George Foreman grill, which took FOREVER but it was so good it was worth it)
•spicy chili lime chicken (lime juice & chili pepper flakes- they come in a little shaker with the pizza we always order and we never use them)
•mini cucumber stars (Sym helped with these. She also tested everything to make sure it wasn’t poisonous)
•tortilla

Taylor kind of made a weird food-pouch with his tortilla, Sym had me help her make a wrap (which we ended up having to take the chicken out of because it was too spicy for her) and I just tore my food apart like a wild animal because I was STARVING and everything was delicious! There are some leftovers and I’m excited to have them for lunch today!

After dinner Symphony had the SUPER GENIUS idea of making s’mores. Now, I know there are some s’mores purists out there who think that if you don’t make them over a campfire they don’t taste good, but those people are basically crazy. These couldn’t have been yummier.

Stack a graham cracker + chocolate + mini marshmallows, put under broiler for a minute- you have to watch them to make sure they don’t get too scorched. The chocolate looks solid but guess what?

IT ISN’T. After you take them out squish a second graham cracker over them and you have perfection!

We all ended up smeared in chocolate and I may have sent Symphony to her grandparents’ house today with marshmallow in her hair. Oops. But WORTH IT.

It’s wet. It’s wet and cold and rainy and when I took Georgie for a walk this morning we both got soaked. It’s only supposed to be rainy for two days and then the sun is back, but the air has been all crisp and chilly for the past week so I’m now in FULL FALL MODE. The other day I ordered my new fall boots: Frye Engineers. I’m going to wear the heck out of these!

Of course, those boots aren’t going to be much use when the rains REALLY start. I currently have some black and white Lacoste rainboots I bought last year, but they’ve started rubbing and chafing my ankles really badly so I might have to get new ones. Honestly I have NO IDEA how I used to survive Vancouver’s rainy season without proper boots! Anyway I’m thinking of getting a pair of Hunter boots, everybody I know who has them LOVES them. The question is: short or tall?

Another totally stylish item I’m looking into is RAIN PANTS. I ask that parents bring them for their kids (although almost no one ever does, argh) and I’m really sick of slogging around in soggy denim so I figure it’s time I start practicing what I preach. I looked at the Mountain Equipment Co-op site but didn’t see anything I liked- the only pair that seemed close to what I was interested in were $165 and had TERRIBLE reviews. Apparently the water resistance isn’t that resistant and the fabric is like a dog hair magnet! Forget that! Instead I’m looking at the Lululemon Community Pant and heck, while I’m at it I might as well get an Everyday Yoga Jacket as well.

The pants have good reviews (some from people who own dogs so hair magnetism won’t be an issue) and aren’t TOTALLY uncool looking. I actually have a similar (and great) Lululemon jacket already, but it’s a) BRIGHT BLUE omg lol how do I own this? and b) probably too small by now. My internet shopping fingers are itching to order these right now but the Lululemon store is like, four blocks from my house, so I think I can hold off until after work when I can go try them on.

Symphony got home last night after spending a whole week at her dad’s. I saw her every day when she came up with her dad to pick up Dougal but I still really missed her! It was weird not having her around. Tomorrow I get to start missing her again because she’s going to be at her grandparents’ house until Saturday, and next Tuesday is the first day of school. Where did this summer go?

A picture I took of Taylor holding Georgie at the breeder’s house, on June 12th, the day we picked her up.

A picture I took of Georgie to this past Saturday, August 27th, to send to the breeder.

Wow. WOW. Is this even the same dog??? I can’t believe how much she’s changed! As she gets her big, fluffy adult coat she’ll change completely again, it’s so crazy. I keep trying to imagine how she’ll look but I can only see her like this, all scraggly hairs, puffy ears and long, skinny legs.

I made these using the recipe that came with the mini doughnut maker, with a couple small changes: instead of nutmeg in the batter I used lemon zest, and instead of dipping them in cinnamon & sugar I made a lemon glaze (which sort of turned out).

I didn’t have a sifter when I made my first batch of doughnuts so I broke a teaball in half to make 2 mini-sifters. It’s useful for sifting small amounts of confectioner’s sugar (not pictured) or straining pulp & seeds out of small amounts of citrus juice.

Before glazing move the doughnuts to a cooling rack in a parchment paper lined baking sheet. I don’t have a REAL recipe with amounts for the glaze, I just sifted a couple teaspoons of confectioner’s sugar at a time and mixed it with 1/2 teaspoons of lemon juice and 1/4 teaspoons of lemon zest until it reached what I judged to be the “right” consistency (ie not totally liquid like last time!). I still need to figure out the best glazing method- I tried piping it with my smaller pastry bag and I tried brushing it on with a silicone pastry brush and neither really worked well. If anyone has any tips or ideas I’d like to hear them!

While my glazing technique leaves something to be desired, these doughnuts are a total success! Delicious and lemony and sweet. Unfortunately Sym is at her dad’s this week so I don’t have a picture of her testing them, so here’s one of Dougal and Georgie being best friends instead.

1. To respect other people’s property.
My backyard is actually shared between three houses, one of which contains another childcare and all of which contain my most ancient nemesis: NEIGHBOR KIDS. The other child care provider and I have toys we leave outside- either they’re too big to move in and out of our apartments, or too dirty, or just not appropriate for inside. We don’t mind if the neighbor kids (and their friends, neighbor kids from down the block) use the toys, but what we DO mind is when they trash them. Not a week goes by that I don’t have to rush out to stop the neighbors kids (all of whom are unsupervised and all of whom are old enough to know better- some are even neighbor TEENS) from breaking, stomping on, throwing over the fence, bashing against a tree or otherwise ruining things which AREN’T THEIRS.

This behavior isn’t limited to daycare toys- toys belonging to the neighbor kids themselves and even pieces of furniture are under attack. Recently I had to intervene when a neighbor kid’s friend from down the block found a remote control car belonging to another neighbor kid, somehow determined it wasn’t working (it was switched off) and was about to “fix” it by hurling it on the flagstone path, and just this week the neighbor kids were playing a game that involved putting resin Adirondack chairs upside-down on their heads and chasing each other around, causing chair collisions with trees and gardens, the fence and other Adirondack-chair-hatted children. Why aren’t the parents telling the children not to break things they know belong to their neighbors?

2. To respect other people’s privacy.
My apartment is a basement apartment and my windows are at ground level. If I have the blinds open and someone happens to walk by, they’ll usually glance in the window, their eyes caught by light or movement. I really don’t like people looking in, so I usually don’t open the blinds on the yard side. I just turn the slats horizontal so that light can get it but you can’t really see into the apartment unless you go right up to the window and peer in. Which is what the neighbor kids do, sometimes even banging on the glass to get my attention. ON WHAT PLANET IS THAT OKAY??? Part of the reason (the other being AWESOMENESS) that I put up the bunting in my library windows was to make it harder to see in here, but it just makes the kids try harder to see in! Why aren’t the parents telling the kids that it’s rude to peer in windows like that?

3. To respect our shared space.
As I mentioned, a lot of people share the yard. It often gets messy (especially with the neighbor kids trashing things) so the other day I decided that I would take a trash bag out and clean up all the broken toys. In addition to trucks with missing wheels, cracked buckets and popped balls, I found garbage. Lots and lots of garbage: empty Slurpee and Frappuccino cups, napkins, ABC gum, used band-aids, candy wrappers, empty sunscreen bottles. None of these things came from me, my family or my daycare kids, so I was cleaning up other people’s trash, or rather, other people’s kid’s trash. I would wonder why the parents haven’t told the kids not to leave garbage in our shared yard, but these are the same people who leave trash bags outside and don’t bother to tidy it up when skunks, squirrels and raccoons rip the bags open and strew smelly yogurt cups and ancient couscous on the lawn. These are the same people responsible for the pantyliner incident.

… to the handsomest, kindest, funniest, most wonderful man in the entire world. You make every day of my life the best day ever, and being married to you makes me the luckiest girl.

before our first date
our wedding day

I was going to take a picture of Taylor today, like, RIGHT NOW, but he’s currently sleeping in a weird position with his mouth wide open. While he is forgiving of most of my sleeping husband photography, he probably wouldn’t appreciate it if I captured him right now. Instead, here is a selection of Sleeping Husband Classics.

It was Symphony’s dad’s birthday the other week, and she wanted to make something special for him. She designed a small pillow with an applique of a wombat and a little pocket for him to put his ring in. I cut out the pieces and helped her when she made mistakes, but she did almost all the sewing on her own. She’s already an accomplished drawer of baby fawns, and soon she’ll be an expert sewer of tiny things like myself.
I wrapped it in plain white paper which she decorated with stickers and I gave her the little giraffe card that came with my Kristiana Parn print in which to write a nice note. I think she did a really good job with everything. Sometimes I still think that she’s a tiny little kid but it’s things like this that show me how grown up she’s becoming. It’s amazing and sad at the same time.

Last night Jenn and I went to the Lady Gaga concert, and let me just tell you it was AMAZING. But then I had a terrible experience this morning so I’m all traumatized. Okay. Good story first!

We met at Subeez at 6 and quickly determined it would be more cost effective to get a whole bottle of sparkling wine instead of cocktails (but then we had cocktails too, opps haha).

I don’t have any real pictures of what I wore but here is a photobooth pic from after I got home.

Georgie was FREAKIN OUT and wouldn’t let me put her down. I bought that sequin skirt back in January to wear on my birthday, and I legitimately forgot to take the tags off so afterwards I was going to return it (YES I’M AWFUL I KNOW) but I never got around to taking it back and now I’m glad I kept it! I wore it with one of my signature grey tank tops, my vintage black crystal necklace, and (not pictured) some grey flats (that MURDERED my feet), and this great black trenchcoat with grey leopard lining I got at H&M last winter.

I bought tickets in March right before we went to Hawaii so I couldn’t really justify getting expensive ones so we ended up in the balcony, but close to the front and less than halfway down the stadium. So while our seats weren’t great, they definitely could have been worse!

Now it’s time for a series of fuzzy photos that demonstrate my camera’s zoom capabilities, haha.

One of my e-friends WENT OFF about this dress (it’s remote control and all the pieces move around) but almost the whole time Lady Gaga had it on she faced the opposite side of the stadium!

The “Fame Monster,” it was like a giant inflatable octopus-anglerfish hybrid.

AMAZING!!

Now for the HORROR STORY (and be happy I DIDN’T take pictures of this): When I took Georgie out this morning I noticed Tina Fey‘s grave looked disturbed, so I went over to check it out and it had been straight up DESECRATED. I had buried him in a box under some bricks but I guess that wasn’t enough to stop raccoons because the bricks were tossed aside and the box was TORE UP. There were scraps of cardboard and paper and little tufts of hair everywhere, it was so horrible.

I figured I’d just shovel everything back into the grave and pretend he was still buried there, but while I was in the middle of that I happened to glance into the grass and that is when I found out that even though the raccoons had dug up the grave and torn open the box, they didn’t eat what was inside. My poor little dead hamster was now a horrible reeking bloated rotting corpse and I HAD TO CLEAN IT UP. I puked in the bushes twice, it was awful. Later this morning Georgie had diarrhea on the kitchen floor and I was like “HOW IS DOG DIARRHEA THE LEAST DISGUSTING THING I HAVE TO DEAL WITH TODAY??” I’m seriously so traumatized.

LESSON LEARNED: RACCOONS ARE WILY BASTARDS.

Taylor is the best husband in the world- he offered to clean up the carcass after work (I didn’t want to leave it there so I did it myself in spite of the HIDEOUS STENCH), but he did finish filling in the grave (which also stinks, I need to go dump a bunch of Borax or baking soda or something in it) AND since I was having such a bad day he stopped at Chapters on his way home and got me a present.